


Leather & Lavender

by Blue_Ambrosia



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt, John is a good husband, Mentions of Child Loss, Perfect couple is perfect, Sleepless nights, diabetes levels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 01:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Ambrosia/pseuds/Blue_Ambrosia
Summary: A night oneshot. Helen Smith is having a difficult time accepting Thomas’ illness. John is her rock.





	Leather & Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya!  
> So this is my first story. Like ever. In case you read, be gentle ;)  
> I seriously mess with the show and medical facts, all to serve my purpose of fueling Helen’s insecurities (sorry not sorry). Here, there is a possibility that Thomas’ genetic disorder could have been carried by his mother.  
> A BIG BIG THANK YOU also to Ophelia_raine on AO3. She is not only the most talented of writers (GoT fans- must check her out!!) but has also been an incredible support for me as a first time writer and kindly offered to beta my non-native-nonsenses.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

Leather & Lavender 

Rose gold sunset rays spilled over the grassy plane. Distant sound of crickets was starting to announce that darkness was soon to envelop them. All too soon, Helen thought, her eyes trained on the horizon.

“Mother!” the voice of her youngest daughter beckoned her mind back to the soft red-and-white chequered blanket underneath her. “We prepared a show for you!” Eyes glinting with pride and excitement of a child, who was seeking approval and praise from the person who mattered the most in this _Reich_ (well, right after the _Führer_ probably).

“I’m all eyes and ears, _meine Schätzen!_ ” Helen exclaimed, straightening her posture to indicate her attention as a viewer.

Amy and Jennifer stood about two meters apart, arms extended in a way that was to indicate that the space between them is a simulated stage. “The Smith family proudly presents...” they chanted simultaneously, “ _das Reichslied!_ ” With that Thomas stepped in the center and started to sing the well known tune.

But it was a rendition never heard before, delivered with effortless and carefree attitude that an adult could never muster. Helen watched them sing and dance, both girls weaving their arms around their brother’s offered bent elbows.

Green. Thomas’ eyes were the exact shade and shape of John’s green eyes that she fell for... what, it must have been over 25 years ago now. His charisma and determination were bound to make him a great leader some day. If only John could see him now. He would be so damn proud of his firstborn.  
The girls sang a solo verse about a strong and handsome boy while Thomas did a handstand and walked around on his hands, ending his little circus charade with an elegant landing on his feet. The smug look on his face... he really was his father’s son, Helen thought fondly.

As the three children ended their performance with a curtsey and a ‘ _Sieg Heil!_ ’, hands extended in front of the darkening sky, now bruising with a purple tint, Helen applauded vigorously and cheered (within limits of propriety for a _Hausfrau_ , of course) at their patriotic entertainment piece. “You were absolutely wonderful, my little angels. What would I do without you... come here for a kiss, all of you!”

They joined her on the blanket and she squeezed them all as tight as she dared so as not to knock the air out of them, radiating the warmth they filled her with moments ago. “Here you go, have some apple juice, especially you Thomas! You must be exhausted after such stunts!” Helen joked. She filled a plastic cup with juice, only to find herself surprised by the dark red color of the liquid —instead of the expected rich gold shade of the homemade apple juice — that was now slowly edging towards the rim of the cup.

“I packed the cranberry juice instead because we were out of the apple one, Mother,” Jennifer helpfully explained upon seeing her mother’s confused expression.

“Oh right, we used the last bottle last week when the Browns stopped by for a visit! We will make sure to make more if it this fall,” Helen assured them with a wink and passed the first cup to Thomas. His hand clenched around it but not tightly enough and the glass proceeded to fall and spill on the blanket, vivid red and pure white replaced by a darker shade, creeping towards her son’s knees.

“Whoops,” chirped Helen, oblivious to the terror on her son’s face. “Let’s get you a...”

“Mom?” he said, worried, his arm still extended in the air.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Mom! I can’t feel my arm.”

Helen blanched. “What do you mean you can’t...” She started to shake and massage his arm vigorously but only succeeded in bringing the paralysis higher up his limb that now swung dead alongside his torso. His eyes searched his mother’s, his pupils blown out in fear.

“Mother I... I can’t... it’s hard to breathe...”

Thomas collapsed on the blanket.

“Oh, no no no, my boy, don’t... It’s gonna be okay! Just try to breathe, come on...relax,” she panicked. But her son’s chest was an unyielding iron armor, not allowing a single molecule of air to enter his lungs. The brain’s connection to the breathing muscles cut like a wire. Irreversibly. Effector functions no longer responsive to the brain’s desperate pleas for oxygen.

His throat making gargling sounds to no effect.

_Think, Helena, there must be some way to save your child. That’s what good parents do._

His face, getting red.

_What would John do?_

And then purple.

_It doesn’t matter now, does it? John’s not here. You are the one with the faulty genome. That’s why John’s not here._

Capillaries in his eyeballs popping, the red rimming the green band around endless blackness.

_What sort of mother gives her child the wrong copy of the chromosome and then lets him die in her arms, doing absolutely nothing to prevent it?_

_A bad one, that’s for sure._

The girls’ shrieking voices were cutting through the darkness, the wind mockingly growing stronger, as if intentionally overpowering the poor boy’s last breath.

“Mother! Help! What’s going on?!”

Helen sobbed. “Nooo! My boy! My precious boy!”

With shaking hands she cradled her son’s head, her own chest feeling tight with helplessness.

“My boooy...” she sobs into the darkness, her body trembling.

“Helen ...”

“Don’t take him away...”

_“Helena!”_

The wind stops whipping her face.

A pair of warm arms wrap around the front of her frame.

A soft mattress underneath. Satin pajamas only a wife of an Obergruppenführer or someone in a position above him could afford.

“It’s okay, everyone is fine, my love,” a figure lying next to her says with a press of their lips against her forehead.

“What, I...” she finally breathes again. Another shaky breath and then the olfactory sense returns, bringing his scent to her attention.

Leather. A hint of aftershave. Lavender fabric softener she washes their pajamas with.

He feels like home and a thousand tiny comforts.

She buries her face in his chest and his grip on her back tightens.

And just like that, she feels infinitely better.

“We’re all fine, _Liebe_ ,” he murmurs into her hairnet and rocks her gently. “Just a nightmare, that’s all.”  
They stay that way for a few minutes. He patiently waits until she untangles herself from his embrace, renewed. She looks at his eyes, just barely visible in the moonlight. That and his cheekbones. She plants a soft kiss on his mouth. Then another, harder. Grateful.

“I’m sorry, I know you have to get up early and you need...” she starts, but he cuts her off.

“Don’t ever be sorry for worrying about our family.” A determined expression on his face, but still soft enough that she knows she is welcome to crawl right back into his arms, if she feels the need to.

She manages a small nod and a tightening of her lips, which almost passes as a smile on her kind, girlish face.

His eyes attentively roam her face. The same pair that turned red in her dreams. And yet, somehow, the pair staring at her right now could not be more different than the one through which she saw Life itself run out moments ago and leave a lifeless body behind.

These two emeralds are focused. Worried. Reachable. Devout.

And most importantly — Real.

He wordlessly suggests she tells him about her dream, but she isn’t ready. Not that she needs to, anyway. More of the same old, really.

“I’m just going to grab a glass of water,” she excuses herself, knowing fully that he sees right through that transparent cover-up but is considerate enough, has been ever since he told her about Thomas’ illness, not to call her bluff.

She fills her glass to the brim under the bathroom tap. Every time she closes her eyes she still sees the grotesque images from her nightmare. As she sips the clear liquid in the dark bathroom, she tries to focus on reality.

I am Helena Smith.  
I am the wife of the Obergruppenführer John Smith, who is just in the adjacent room.  
He’s mine, as I am his.  
He wouldn’t leave me. Not in a million years.  
We have three beautiful children...  
Do we really? All three?

With that horrible thought she paces to the doors of Thomas’ room and quietly pushes them ajar. His angelic face seems undisturbed in his sleep.

It is definitely sleep, she checks. The covers are steadily rising and falling.

With that she stands in the doorway for an unknown period of time. She notices how much bigger his arm muscles have gotten lately with all the sports he does at school, the sleeves of his nightwear stretched a little too tight around his arms. His smooth pink skin is unmarred, except for a minute cut on the right side of his chin. A memory of his first shaving from a couple of days ago.

She suddenly feels a hand on the small of her back. Leather and lavender embrace her from behind.  
She sets down her glass on a hallway counter, as he does nothing but offer his silent support against her relaxing body. She laces her fingers with his above her abdomen, his warm hands a scorching contrast against her own icy palms.

“Every day I wake up thinking ‘Is today the last day I can call myself a mother of a son?’,” she whispers.

“I know,” he quietly replies.

“And where is it going to happen? In the school gym? At the dining table? When he’s crossing the road?”

“I know.”

“I can’t do this anymore, John. I’m not...”

“Yes, you are,” he assures her. “I told you once that you are the strongest person I know. That still stands.”

“How do you do it?” she inquires. “How can you look at him and make plans for his future, when no one can say for certain if he will... if he...” her voice shakes and a strangled cry escapes her lips.

“Well he doesn’t know that, does he,” John simply replies. “Everything I do, I do it for the good of our family. If it involves lying to our children’s face or making plans with no certain grounds of execution... then so be it. It is hard at times. But it is the right thing to do.”

Helen sniffs. Always the pragmatic one, of course. Her string attached to the solid ground, keeping her from uncontrollably floating away like a helium balloon.

After a beat he adds, “Was today one of those dreams where you were alone with them again? Where I left you?”

She nods.

He leans forward to gently close the door of their son’s room, but doesn’t move to walk away.

Instead he exhales slowly, bending down to nuzzle her neck. “I am sorry that I don’t tell and show you sufficiently how much you mean to me. I wish you would understand that coming home to a household we created together means a rejuvenating oasis in my life. And that I am such a lucky bastard to have you, taking such a good care of our family while I am admittedly too often away at work.”

She does not reply for the fear of her voice breaking.

“Not only are you a loving mother with incredible parenting skills, you do everything with the utmost grace and humility. I am so proud to stand beside you in public and every male eye apart from mine that rests on you for too long, is at a serious risk of being separated from its owner. Every time I see you, you still make my breath hitch with your beauty and sex appeal.” With one hand he removes her hairnet, intentionally tousling her short blonde curls and turning her around to face him. It is only when he leans in to kiss her face that she realizes a pair of tears escaped her eyes.

A pair that he now kisses away and with it — slowly — her insecurities.

She gazes into his kind eyes, trying every bit not to feel silly. After all it should not be the husband’s duty to make the wife feel wanted but rather the other way around, right? She shyly drops her gaze, but that does it for him.

He gently lifts her chin and kisses her hungrily. He slides his hand up the side of her face, as gently as if she were made of crystal glass. So precious and wanted she feels in that moment. The hand that is not busy playing with her locks, travels down her left side, slipping securely around her waist and closing the distance between them. Silently conveying her love — no, need for him, she throws her arms around his neck and pulls him towards herself, hands weaving through his well kept short hair. Their kiss is bursting with silent emotions.

Vulnerability. Sadness. Desperation. Comfort. Promise. Need. Love.

When they finally pull apart, in his eyes she can find nothing but adoration and love for the mother of his children. “Don’t ever leave me. I can’t make it on my own,” she silently pleads.

She seeks his face for annoyance, pity, reluctance.

Instead she is met with a strange kind of... vulnerability. After a couple of seconds he honestly admits: “The day you’re not beside me anymore is the day my life ends.” He leans his forehead against hers for a moment and whispers, still playing with the ends of her now wild hair, tickling her jawline, “Come. Let’s go back to bed.”

Hand in hand, he leads her to their bedroom. She squeezes his hand gently and he returns the squeeze, his wedding ring grazing against her soft fingers.

He is proud to wear it, he says. Her heart unexpectedly swells again. She stands on her tiptoes and pecks his lips. Then another, a slightly lingering one.

When they lie down, he covers them with their white cashmere covers and spoons her from behind, nuzzling her neck. His whole body is emitting heat that before long spreads all through her and her own demons die down.

For one night at least.

“I love it when you let your hair down. So soft.” With that he presses one last kiss to her temple and drifts off to sleep, while his wife softly runs her thumb alongside the back of his hand.

Securely held, Helen closes her eyes, making a mental note to toss the hairnet the next morning, and listens as her heartbeat matches her husband’s as peaceful sleep overtakes them both.


End file.
